Business Advisory and Patrol Services

Posted Sunday, January 19 2025

For tax return preparation, WCG CPAs & Advisors divides the tax house between a tax-only engagement (what we affectionately call TOEs) and business advisory / patrol services (what we collectively call advisory). Specially, we have-

• Business Advisory Services
• Investor Patrol Services
• Tax Patrol Services

Key takeaways-

1. Service Differentiation:

Business Advisory Services (BAS): Offers comprehensive business and individual tax return preparation, tax planning, payroll planning including processing, and routine consultation. It includes three platforms: Vail, Telluride, and Aspen, each with varying levels of service and customization.

Investor Patrol Services (IPS): Tailored for rental property owners and real estate investors, offering tax return preparation, tax planning, and routine consultation. It includes three platforms: Houses, Hotels, and Monopoly.

Tax Patrol Services (TPS): Focuses on tax return preparation, streamlined tax planning, and routine quick chats for individuals and businesses. It includes three platforms: Keystone, Copper, and Breckenridge.

2. Pricing and Customization:

Each service platform is priced annually yet paid as a monthly subscription. The services are customizable to fit your specific needs, with higher-tier platforms offering more comprehensive support and planning.

3. Specialized Support:

BAS: Provides extensive business advisory and tax planning services, including interfacing with lenders, attorneys, and financial planners.

IPS: Designed for real estate investors, offering practical advice and support from real estate CPAs who are also landlords.

TPS: Offers tax preparation and tax planning for those who do not need extensive business advisory services. Most of the taste with half the calories.

4. Financial Advisor Boundaries:

While WCG CPAs & Advisors provide extensive tax and business advisory services, they defer to financial advisors for investment planning and retirement advice. We focus on tax-related questions and provide referrals for financial planning needs.

Ok! Let’s dig in and run through each of these

We offer three BAS platforms- Vail, Telluride and Aspen aptly named after fancy-pants ski resorts. Our Vail Business Advisory Service package is $4,500 annually (paid as a monthly subscription) and includes your business entity tax return (Form 1065, 1120 or 1120S), individual tax return (Form 1040), shareholder payroll planning and processing via ADP, household tax planning and tax strategy sessions, and routine consultation.

That’s the elevator speech. But it was a short building, so you can see the full Business Advisory Services offering on the WCG Fee Page.

About 4 hours away from Vail via a pretty drive in the western slopes, our Telluride Business Advisory plan is $4,980 annually and includes pro-active business tax planning plus interfacing with lenders, attorneys and financial planners. Pro-active tax planning for businesses includes business-entity tax planning and payments (California’s Franchise Tax, New Jersey’s BAIT, Portland’s overall madness, NYC, etc.), pass-through entity tax (PTET) calculations and payments, among other things.

Not every business entity needs separate tax planning! Texas, No. California, Yes. Please see our Tax Planning Services page and Master Service Agreement for more information.

Aspen is mostly a customized engagement where we determine what you need, and what you don’t need, and then design a comprehensive platform for your unique situation.

Investor Patrol is specifically designed for rental property owners and real estate investors. WCG CPAs & Advisors are real estate CPAs who understand real estate investing and operating rental properties in a practical down-to-earth way, and not just the typical CPA or compliance way. Many team members are landlords and can speak your language.

Similar to BAS above, IPS comes in three variants named after the board game Monopoly- Houses, Hotels and of course Monopoly. Fun!

Our Houses Investor Patrol Services platform is $2,040 annually (paid as a monthly subscription) and includes your individual tax return (Form 1040), up to 3 rentals and 2 states, pro-active household tax planning and tax strategy sessions, and routine quick chats.

Hotels is $2,520 annually and includes up to 6 rentals and 4 states, and Monopoly is purely custom like Aspen above. We can also make tweaks to Houses and Hotels to fit your situation. For example, if you have 4 rentals but only 1 state tax return, we’d probably lean towards Houses versus Hotels (swap a state for a house).

Let’s not forget that Investor Patrol Services also includes IRS audit defense for any tax return that we prepare. Please review our full Investor Patrol Services webpage for all kinds of fine print for your consideration. It’s really not that much. Then again, that’s what they all say.

Also, please check out our rental property book titled I Just Got A Rental, What Do I Do? This is our second book. Our first book, Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps, was first published in 2014 and was well-received by small business owners and tax professionals, so we thought a book on rental properties and real estate investments would be equally helpful.

Tax Patrol is a wonderful tax service for those who don’t need business advisory services or real estate investment support, but from time to time want some love from an experienced tax consultant and business advisor. Have a quick tax question? Need to know the depreciation rules as you buy that new car? Wondering what your April tax bill is going to be in August? Your spouse upgraded to a different job- how is that going to affect things? You received a big bonus- yay, but how will that impact your tax bill?

Our Keystone Tax Patrol Services platform is $1,740 annually (paid as a monthly subscription) and includes tax return preparation (Form 1040), tax planning and routine quick chats. Copper is the same thing just for business entities (Form 1065, 1120 and 1120S), and Breckenridge combines Keystone and Copper (1040 and business tax returns).

Good question! Our Business Advisory Service platforms (Vail, Telluride and Aspen) are more advisory forward like a robust old-fashioned with lots of planning, tax reduction strategies and business consultation to help you make decisions. Our Tax Patrol Services (Keystone, Copper and Breck) are more tax preparation forward like a refreshing vodka-lemonade with less tax planning, or at least less-intensive planning and consultation.

The lovely people of Breckenridge might think they are just as cool as the Vail peeps, but a quick look at lift ticket prices and real estate would suggest otherwise. As it relates to BAS and TPS, the primary difference between Vail BAS and Breck TPS is payroll planning and processing.

Payroll is quite intensive- we determine a reasonable salary with you, discuss 401k ambitions, review fringe benefits such as health insurance, increase withholdings to replace or augment estimated tax payments and determine cash requirements for processing. Breck does not provide payroll planning even if you process payroll yourself.

Investor Patrol Services for our rental property owners and investors is somewhere in-between since real estate is a business like any other requiring more planning, strategy and consultation but falls short of needing shareholder payroll planning and processing.

If our Business Advisory or Investor / Tax Patrol platforms are more than you need at this time, we completely understand. We can always engage in a tax return preparation only environment. Later if you would like more tax planning and tax reduction strategy plus routine consultations, we can revisit. We are flexible!

Please visit our individual tax return and business entity tax return preparation pages for more information. We also have one specifically for rental property owners.

So many things appear to be tax return related or even business advisory related, but they are outside of our purview. While we appreciate the trust that you have in us, not all things with a dollar sign are handled by your tax professional or business consultant. Several examples come from 401k and investment planning such as-

• Should I maximize my 401k plan and / or IRA contribution? This is a financial advisor question.
• Should I do pre-tax or Roth (after-tax) contributions? This too is a financial advisor question. Having said that, we have strong feelings towards Roth contributions. Read more about Roth Versus Pre-Tax here.
• What will my tax bill be if a make a 401k plan or IRA contribution? Ah, this one we can answer!
• I want to convert some traditional IRA money into a Roth IRA. How much can I do before going into the next tax bracket? This one we can answer as well.

Your job is to ask us anything, and our job is to say “we are unable to help but we know who can” or “that is not routine and outside of scope, here is a quote for that project” While we have two CFPs and former financial advisors on our team, we must stay in our lane and defer to those who provide financial planning and retirement advice on a daily basis.

Here are softballs that we answer all the time-

• Should my business buy a car? If so, should I do it now or wait until next year?
• What will be first year depreciation and tax savings on my business car?
• Should I add my spouse to payroll? My children?
• How much cash do I need to process payroll?
• What should my S Corp pay me as a reasonable salary?
• Should I be reimbursed for my home office?
• I provide services in a variety of states, do I need to file tax returns there?
• How much tax will I save if I do a cost segregation study on my rental property?
• What time counts towards the short-term rental loophole?
• How does travel expenses factor into start-up expenses, acquisition costs and operating expenses?

There are several others of course!

Did you want to chat about this and find the right solution for you?

WCG CPAs & Advisors is a full service consultation and tax preparation firm, and we look forward to working with you!